Speak out against gun lobby

February 2, 2013

How wonderful to imagine a world without guns, ammunition and, most of all, the National Rifle Association. I have nothing against hunters or against responsible people (well-vetted) who keep guns at home (not carried) for protection.

However, to use the Second Amendment as an excuse to purchase and own automatic or semi-automatic weapons is absolutely ridiculous. Carrying those weapons is not a guaranteed constitutional right. The Founding Fathers never envisioned the technology of today; if we go strictly by our Constitution, we should be able to purchase nothing but muskets and ball-and-cap pistols.

They also didn't know that the country would develop a national military, thus minimizing the need for a state militia. We do not need to arm our communities; we have police departments which, for the most part, are strongly against the laxity of gun control found in our cities, towns and villages. Hunters do not need military or pseudo-military weapons to hunt game. They do not need magazines holding multiple rounds of ammunition.

The NRA is nothing more than a political bully, buying and selling the powerbrokers of Washington in order to fill their coffers. Disagree with the NRA and you lose the money to run for re-election; they are more insidious to our democracy that the SuperPACs that have glutted our election process.

There are good things the NRA does and should continue to do, especially the teaching of proper gun safety - for hunting weapons. Beyond that, it does our country tremendous harm by substituting reason for enormous profit. The NRA says we must have personal mega-weapons because bad people have them, and there are so many of these guns out there that no federal ban will get rid of them. Thus, we need to return fire with fire.

Are they right? Yes, but you can get around that. There should be an immediate ban of all ammunition sales that fit this type of weapon. It wouldn't be too long before the bullets are used up.

Arm school teachers? No, no, no! There will be many more accidental deaths across the country (even with NRA training) than there will be loss of life through the type of horror we have seen in our schools.

The NRA could be a force for good in the United States, but it refuses. Power rules and defiles, and that is where the present leadership of this organization has taken a potentially good group of responsible gun owners.

It is time the people of our country speak out against the power of this gun lobby. It harms us, it demeans us and it makes us look like savages (which, perhaps, we are) to the rest of the thinking world, where gun deaths are a tiny fraction of our own. Read the statistics; our country has an abominable concern for our fellow Americans.